2Why did North Korea fire the missiles now?

North Korea test fires short-range missiles into the sea a few times a year, usually during military drills. Winter exercises are ongoing in the North. The launches are also seen by officials in Seoul as a protest against military exercises in South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea began their annual drills this week, which will run through April. “With the exercises underway, we see the firings as a calculated, provocative act,” South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said Friday, also noting that a North Korean ship breached the west coast inter-Korean maritime border earlier this week. South Korea doesn’t always publicize military provocations from the North but did give details of missile launches last year around the time of drills in the South.

3Why isn’t South Korea consistent with information about provocations?

During the press conferences about the naval incursion earlier this week, Mr. Kim said that Seoul made the announcement because of increased public interest in inter-Korean affairs. The two Koreas have shown some modest thawing of ties recently following high-level meetings and the just-ended reunions of families divided by the inter-Korean border. Critics say that the defense ministry and military hawks like to keep alive concern about the threat from North Korea whenever ties between Seoul and Pyongyang appear to get better.

4Are these missile launches a breach of United Nations sanctions?

Yes. U.S. officials confirmed Monday – after North Korea launched another two missiles – that the firings were a breach of U.N. sanctions. Col. Steve Warren, the Pentagon spokesman, had initially said the launches didn’t breach U.N. sanctions. U.N. sanctions ban tests of ballistic missiles by North Korea, regardless of their range. So Scud missiles, which are ballistic weapons, are in fact covered by U.S. restrictions.

5Are we looking at a sharp build up in tensions again, like last year?

That’s hard to say at this point. Things can change very quickly with North Korea. It is clearly still very unhappy with the drills in the South, which it characterizes as a rehearsal for invasion, and has been making a strong pitch to try and stop them. It has rolled out its ambassadors for interviews and bizarre press conferences and issued a few calls through its state media for the exercises to be scrapped, including an “open letter” to the South warning that the drills were a hurdle to better inter-Korean relations. There was no mention of its own drills being a problem, of course. What appears to be a particular concern to North Korea is the use of nuclear-capable bombers and aircraft carriers in exercises in the South. Local media in South Korea have reported that the exercises this year will be “low-key,” but the defense ministry has denied this.